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You Have to Be Willing to Change

Daily Stoic Emails

We’ve been this way for a while. We are set in our ways. We’ve always had a short fuse. We’ve always been sad about our childhood. We’ve always had trouble with our eating. We’ve never been much good at being faithful. 

Maybe you have a mean streak. Maybe you’re too timid. Maybe you don’t like to try very hard. Maybe you don’t think you’re good enough.

How’s that working out for you? Why keep going down a road that leads nowhere?

Marcus Aurelius talks about how crazy it is that we just go on staying the same person we’ve always been—how we just “keep being mauled and degraded” by the life we’re living. And for what? It’s not even pleasurable. It’s not even getting us what we want. 

A person who can’t change, who refused to change, he says are “like those animal fighters at the games—torn half to pieces, covered in blood and gore, and still pleasing to be held over till tomorrow… to be bitten and clawed again.”

The definition of insanity, they say, is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. There is nothing sadder than a person who can’t grow, who cannot turn over a new leaf, who cannot take a leap of faith forward, into the dark.

You have to be willing to change. You must change. You must get better.

Not later, not eventually, but now. 

Why not start 2021 by actually taking the steps to create a better life? To actively step toward being the person you know you can be? 

That’s why we created the New Year, New You Challenge. It’s a set of 21 actionable challenges—presented one per day—built around the best, most timeless wisdom in Stoic philosophy. Our goal is to help you make 2021 your best year yet.

Every year—this year right in front of you—can be the most important year of your life. The one where you become your best, most creative, most centered, most self-reliant and resilient self. But you have to be willing to change. 

Our New Year, New You Challenge is all-new content, guided by thousands of responses and reactions to our previous challenges, courses, videos, and emails. It’s a whole new challenge based on painstaking research and timeless science, for an all-new, life changing experience.

The challenge is designed to help you: 

  • Stop procrastinating on your dreams
  • Learn new skills
  • Quite harmful vices
  • Make amends
  • Learn from past mistakes
  • Have more hope for the new year
  • And much, much more… 

What are the risks or the downsides of NOT taking control of your life? For allowing another year to pass not living up to your potential? Not changing your ways? Most of the risks aren’t dire, but none of the downsides are good. Some are just downright miserable. Don’t let that happen in 2021. Again.

You have to be willing to change. Don’t wait to better yourself. Stop being mauled and dragged down by the life you’re living. Don’t wait to demand more of yourself. Start Now.

P.S. This was originally sent on December 15, 2020. Sign up today for the Daily Stoic’s email and get our popular free 7-day course on Stoicism.